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Friday, November 15, 2013

FTM2014 - Web Merge - Web Clipping tool

In recent blog posts, I have mentioned the following information from the Find-A-Grave website. But, how do I capture that information, without a lot of typing, or how to do a Web Merge, from a Non-Ancestry.com website?

I'll start from following a Shaky Leaf in FTM2014 from Ancestry to a hint on the Find-A-Grave website. It's an Index screen from Ancestry.

When I selected the Find-A-Grave hint, in the Web Search Workspace, the screen looked like this:

If you click on the box, it SHOULD take you to the Find-A-Grave website or Memorial Page for that person. My experience has been, that many times it doesn't work as it should. The Development Organization is aware of this problem, so don't panic.

Here is how to get around this problem. I find this works 100% of the time. In the Web Search workspace there is the Address Bar, just like your normal Browser. The first ICON to the left of the word ADDRESS is where you can open the window, that is in the Web Search workspace, into a New Browser window, not within Family Tree Maker. That, as expected, will open up your default browser.

It looks exactly like what is within Family Tree Maker, BUT, clicking on that same box, takes you toward that web page.

Because you will be leaving the Ancestry.com website, you will see this warning message, where you will give permission to go on to the Find-A-Grave website.

There may be little or a lot of information on this page, some of which you want back into Family Tree Maker.

Now, switch back to Family Tree Maker and Paste (CTRL+V) that URL into the Address Bar within Family Tree Maker. You may have to click on the Green GO ICON on the right. But, that Find-A-Grave web page will be within the Web Search Workspace.

NOTE: This works with other websites that you might want to use, such as Fold3.com, FamilySearch.org, etc.

Here is where the magic is of the Web Clipping feature. That ICON in the lower right corner of this screen turns that feature on and off. Its ON in this case as it is orange.

What I did was to Hi-Light the Date, Jul 1, 1820, and that window will open. I choose where I want to put that date. In this case, I selected the DATE field. I would then do the same for the Birth Place, if there is one, but ONLY those fields that you want to capture. You would want to turn the Web Clipping feature OFF, to copy that text on that page. I am only talking about, basically, the Birth, Death, and Burial Facts from this page.

Once I have selected the fields, that fields will appear in the lower right corner of this workspace.

There is an Edit ICON, if you want to edit what is there, or you can Delete an entry if you don't want it there. This can be done BEFORE you merge that data into Family Tree Maker.

Then you click on the MERGE ICON to the left of the Web Clipping ICON.

The normal Web Merge Screen will appear.

In this example, the Birth Date information was more complete from Find-A-Grave then what I had in my database, so I selected from the Right panel to be the Preferred Fact.

There are choices as what you can do in the web merge process, but that has been covered elsewhere and will probably be covered again in the future.

Clicking on next will continue through the Web Merge feature, which would include the Sources attached to each fact if you choose to do so.

As with some of the Web Merges, there may be some clean up to do. In this case, I know that the Source will be OnLine Source, so I will convert that Source to the appropriate Source Template for this type of record.

Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.